


Once upon a time in Barovia

by Nui (Nuiihren)



Series: Curse of Strahd Shorts Collection [7]
Category: Curse of Strahd - Fandom
Genre: Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27996108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuiihren/pseuds/Nui
Summary: Come closer, come closer, dear children of Barovia! Don't be shy! It's time for a nice little tale of what waits for you deep in the woods.
Series: Curse of Strahd Shorts Collection [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031067
Kudos: 5





	Once upon a time in Barovia

There once lived a girl at the edge of the woods. Her parents had a farm just a three hour’s ride away from the city, where they tended their fields and looked after their hens and goats and were a happy little family with their two daughters - one almost grown, the other just a babe. They worked hard during the day, but one hour before the sun sat somewhere beyond the veil of clouds and mists, they’d lay down their work and close all their windows and bar all their doors, to keep the darkness outside with everything that lived in it. Then they’d sit at the table, the fireplace burning bright, and tell stories to the girl, of the man-wolves and dead things, the Devil and the mists. So many different stories, yet they all ended the same: _This is why you can never go into the woods, this is why you can never leave the house at night._ Only the house was safe, the girl learned, nothing could get to her inside.

Then one night the girl awoke and the old woman was there. She was standing by the window right next to the bed - a frail withered creature, no taller than the girl herself, thinning grey hair pulled up into a bun. In her arms she was cradling a baby, her boney spidery fingers stroking its cheeks in fascination, her voice a soft creak as she hummed to it under her breath.

“ _And when it was night, so sad was their plight,_ ” the old woman sang. “ _The sun it went down, and the moon gave no light!_

_They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried_

_And long before morning, they lay down and died._ ”

“You’ll wake her,” the girl said, sitting up in her bed. Cold air bit into the skin of her arms as the blanket slipped down, “put her back in the crib.”

With their parents gone to sell grain in Vallaki the girl was in charge and no ghosts could just come and do as they pleased. She was in her house and her house was safe. The old woman turned her head, a bright kindly smile extending from her lips across her wrinkled face, reaching into her eyes and deeper from there until all of her shone with soothing calm.

“What a scrawny little thing you are,” she cooed, “but it will be before long and you’ll grow just like your mother.”

“Who are you?” asked the girl.

“Morgantha, they call me,” the crone came closer, still cradling the babe. The floorboards creaked a melody under her feet, the old bed frame squeaking the final note as she sat down beside the girl.

“Where did you come from?”

“Oh, I live just nearby, my dear,” the old woman said. “Would you like to visit?”

“No,” the girl shook her head and then realised: “you’re just a dream. Give me my sister and begone.”

The babe made a soft mumbling sound, still sleeping tight.

“Brave child,” smiled the crone, “but why wouldn’t you be? If this is a dream, you have nothing to fear. So let me tell you a story… you like those, do you not?”

“I do,” the girl agreed. The cold was creeping over from her bare arms under her nightgown. Maybe the fire had gone out? She’d have to wake up and light it back on, but the dream was holding her tight.

“Then I’ll tell you. Though maybe you’ve even heard this one before. There once was a woman… a girl, really. Young and foolish she was. And as young foolish girls do, she found herself a husband just as foolish and young as herself and they settled on a farm at the edge of the forest. One morning, the husband went away to chop wood, as he would do sometimes. One hour passed, then two, then three, but he did not return… and already it was past noon, yet not a word from him. The woman grew worried and restless, oh woe!, and with another hour gone by, she decided to look for him. The problem was, she had a child, a small girl of just a few moons, and no one else to look after her at home. So off she went into the woods to look for her husband, and took the babe with her in a nice cozy sling around her neck.

But you know the woods, they are a dark and confusing place. She tried to follow a path, but it never led her where she wanted. She walked and walked and called her husband’s name, and sang songs to the babe when it would cry in its sling. Or maybe to herself, for a song always makes you less afraid. And as she walked on and on she finally heard a scream, a familiar voice. She ran, fear and hope rushing her forward… and there he was! her husband - a branch thick as some tree trunks fell on his leg, leaving him helpless just like that. Thank the gods she found him! But as the woman helped him get from under the branch and back on his feet, both realised that by now it was getting dark and there they were, stuck in the woods together…”

“What then?” asked the girl.

“Then,” the old woman sighed, her spidery fingers tugging at the babe’s swaddling clothes, “then they did what anyone would do. They walked and prayed. To the Morninglord, a bit, and then a lot more to Mother Night. It was her time, after all. They prayed and prayed and she must have heard, for not even half an hour later the dark trees parted, revealing a familiar sight of their home. Nothing touched them on their way. Nothing attacked… and yet suddenly the woman cried out in anguish! Something was amiss! The husband looked at her and realised it too… their little daughter, she was gone from that sling around her mother’s neck. When and how? Who could tell…”

“Did they go back?”

“Oh, they wanted to, how could they not? But it was so dark and the mists grew so thick, they realised it would be in vain. And so instead they went home. They cried and swore and prayed… again and again they prayed to Mother Night to give back the child, promising to do anything for it. And you know what? She answered their prayers again. A week later, come morning, they heard a cry at their doorstep. And there she was, their little girl, healthy and whole.”

“Just like that?” the girl asked suspiciously.

The old woman winked: “Just like that.”

“It sounds too easy.”

Swaddling clothes, undone, slipped to the floor and then suddenly, the babe rose into the air all by itself, completely naked. Hanging above the crone’s head, it was still sleeping tight, only mumbling something again in its child-language.

“Come to think of it,” she said as if to herself, gaze on the soaring child, “it does sound too easy.”

Slowly, she opened her mouth, somehow bigger than it could possibly be, and looked at the girl again. A smile was playing in her eyes, a spark of mischief, as the babe lowered itself into the gorge between her yellowed teeth. With it, a scream rose from the girl’s belly, rolling over her body in a violent thrust. It fought its way out in a trail of bile and terror, long and painful, almost inhuman.

Then it grew quiet.

In a dark cold room of an empty house the old woman stood up, her hair messier than before, her belly painfully swollen. The floorboards creaked their complaint as she moved to the door.

“Come, deary, let’s make us some tea and wait for our hosts,” she told the second figure still sitting on the bed. Twisted and haggard, it didn’t resemble a little girl.


End file.
